Chapter 3 - The First Retaliation
Three days after my discharge from the hospital, the first strike from Mark Sterling arrived.
I was sitting in the sunlit dining room of Luka’s estate, holding Maya as she fed, when Mrs. Gable brought in a formal legal notice delivered by a process server at the gate.
I opened the envelope with shaking hands. It was an emergency court injunction filed by Mark Sterling’s high-powered legal team.
It accused me of kidnapping Maya, claiming I had suffered a severe psychotic break after childbirth, and demanded immediate sole custody of the infant, citing my "unstable financial status" and "association with a known criminal element"—referring to Luka.
"He's trying to declare me unfit!" I sobbed, tears splashing onto the legal papers. "He wants to take Maya away from me so he can harvest her cord blood for Chloe!"
Luka walked into the room, wearing a tailored charcoal suit that concealed his neck tattoos beneath a crisp white collar. He took the legal notice from my hands, scanning it with a cold, practiced eye.
"He filed this in the 4th Circuit Court," Luka noted calmly. "Judge Harrison presides there. Harrison is on Julian Vance’s payroll."
"What am I going to do?" I panicked, standing up and pacing the hardwood floor. "I don't have a defense! Mark has millions behind him!"
Luka pulled out his phone, tapped a quick command, and looked at me. "Mark has money. I have leverage."
Ten minutes later, a sleek silver sedan pulled up the driveway. Stepping out of the car was Victoria Vance—Julian Vance’s estranged older sister and the chief legal counsel who had built Vance Pharma before her brother ousted her three years ago.
Victoria walked into the living room, tossing her designer briefcase onto the table.
"Clara," Victoria said, her voice sharp and authoritative. "Luka briefed me on the situation. Mark Sterling is a pathetic climber who thinks he can use my niece's illness to steal your father's life work."
"Can they take Maya?" I begged Victoria.
"Over my dead body," Victoria declared, pulling out a stack of documents. "First of all, Mark’s custody petition is legally void. Because Luka signed the birth certificate at the hospital while Mark was absent, Luka is currently listed as the legal father under state emergency statutes."
I looked at Luka, stunned. "You did that on purpose?"
"I knew Mark’s lawyers would strike within seventy-two hours," Luka admitted, stepping next to Victoria. "By signing that document, I forced them into a paternity contest. They can't claim sole custody without first proving Luka isn't the father through a court-ordered DNA test—which takes at least six weeks to process."
"That gives us six weeks to dismantle Mark Sterling," Victoria smiled dangerously.
May you like
"And how do we do that?" I asked.
Luka looked out the window toward the gate. "We release the real medical records of Project M-17 to the press. But first, we need to visit your father's old lab."
